ianwallace Posted October 9, 2015 Report Share Posted October 9, 2015 Hi there, I've jumped into the hobby for the first time and decided to go right for the marine nano (90 Ltr) with sump and proline skimmer. I've had the water cycling for a few weeks and have added live rock along the way with a few more pieces still to come to give me a good platform for corals etc down the track. I started the cycling with some new tank stabilisation and have been checking all of the usual levels a couple of times a week and had no issues so I decided to jump the gun and add a couple of coral banded shrimp and a piece of hammer coral....the hammer coral seems to come out after a while when the light is on and looks great but it looks a little "average" when the light is off (see photo - top middle of rock stack)....is this normal? The shrimp are doing ok so far but I'm concerned they aren't getting enough food with the filter sweeping up anything that's floating around fairly quickly....are there any suggestions on how to ensure the shrimp are properly fed (I'm putting in half a cube of frozen brine shrimp each morning)? In relation to testing, if any of the parameters come up outside of the healthy tolerances, is it as simple as changing say 20% of the water on a weekly basis to sort it out or should I have a range of other supplements at hand to treat it? I'll include a photo of the tank as it stands and will provide updates as I go but any suggestions or advice on how I should progress with creating a healthy environment for the corals and subsequent fish would be appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
liquidg Posted October 9, 2015 Report Share Posted October 9, 2015 (edited) Hi there,I've jumped into the hobby for the first time and decided to go right for the marine nano (90 Ltr) with sump and proline skimmer. I've had the water cycling for a few weeks and have added live rock along the way with a few more pieces still to come to give me a good platform for corals etc down the track. I started the cycling with some new tank stabilisation and have been checking all of the usual levels a couple of times a week and had no issues so I decided to jump the gun and add a couple of coral banded shrimp and a piece of hammer coral....the hammer coral seems to come out after a while when the light is on and looks great but it looks a little "average" when the light is off (see photo - top middle of rock stack)....is this normal? The shrimp are doing ok so far but I'm concerned they aren't getting enough food with the filter sweeping up anything that's floating around fairly quickly....are there any suggestions on how to ensure the shrimp are properly fed (I'm putting in half a cube of frozen brine shrimp each morning)? In relation to testing, if any of the parameters come up outside of the healthy tolerances, is it as simple as changing say 20% of the water on a weekly basis to sort it out or should I have a range of other supplements at hand to treat it? I'll include a photo of the tank as it stands and will provide updates as I go but any suggestions or advice on how I should progress with creating a healthy environment for the corals and subsequent fish would be appreciated. Firstly what is that green at the front, if it is a caulerpa species, get rid of it! If in doubt "treat it", not parasite treatments, just PH control and ammonia control, the quicker it is treated the less deaths occur, then think about water changes, then treat again as water changes can destabilise PH initially. The filter you speak of, if what it is taking out and the filter in still in the water and not cleaned, that rubbish is still in your water doing its bit. Your hammers when lights are on will reach out/expand to allow its symbiotic alage to make contact with available light to photosynthesis and pick up foods as they pass by. There are no colours in corals bar a few species , most all polyps are clear to white, the algae with in their cells gives them colour and the symbiotic algae's photosynthetic capacity is part of its food supply as one being glucose! Temperature, PH,CO2 and ammonia are at the top of your watch list for your reef! Its very easy mate, jus be careful and reefing will be putting a smile on your face for years! Edited October 9, 2015 by liquidg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
african-cichlids Posted October 9, 2015 Report Share Posted October 9, 2015 All I can say is taking it slow is the key to starting a new reef tank. Have you got anything to control phosphates or nitrates because that filter won't do much for it I don't think. Water changes don't necessarily fix things it will temporarily but finding the problem is going to fix the problem. Depending on the corals your wanting to keep will determine what to test for. There's a lot more that goes into keeping sps corals compared to keeping lps and softies. With your hammer it's quite normal for hammers and torches to close up when lights are off but as the lights come back on that should open back up. Hammers won't open up tho if theres too much water movement What are your params? And what do you have for water movement? Do as much research as you can because the more info you read will help in the long run. There's a lot of members on here with great advice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianwallace Posted October 9, 2015 Author Report Share Posted October 9, 2015 Thanks for your comments. To be honest I'm not sure what the green stuff is...it was on a piece of live rock I bought off someone and they said it was a good thing...sounds like this may not necessarily be the case? I'll check water parameters over the weekend and report back but in terms of water movement I've just got the built in sump pump which pushes out 1300 Ltrs/hr and I've got a small fluval filter in which I used in a smaller tank I initially had...will likely remove this down the track. For the corals I'll stick with the easy to manage variety...do they generally just feed off the light and other things in the water or do I need to add something specific? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianwallace Posted October 9, 2015 Author Report Share Posted October 9, 2015 In terms of lighting I've read a couple of different threads on how long I should have the lights turned on for 10-12 hour or 5-6 hours?....I understand if it's on too long then alge can become a problem....what's the general consensus on how long I should run the white light for and how long on the blue light? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
liquidg Posted October 9, 2015 Report Share Posted October 9, 2015 (edited) Both blue and white the same length of time, the main reason we use the blue, "which is supposed to equate to actinic and with blue leds they are not overly actinic", anyway we use a good blue colour to keep going into the water as in the most powerful of colours with depth penetration and corals algae act accordingly by making the coral look fluorescent. It just goes deeper with prolonged strength and the other imbedded colours that you can see in a rainbow, they start fading as they head down through the defusing water, red usually fades first. It is mainly why the ocean is blue, the other colours get absorbed faster and of course when the ocean is green, it is heavily loaded with phytoplankton and reddish or blue green it is with cyanobacteria and so on. Mate just apply this to your hobby, all plant life in the ocean and on the land react and survive due to the colours imbedded in light, these enable photosynthesis, not UVR, the sun actually harms plant life, so if going with leds, the cool white has all the colours with in that light, but it is best to get a mix of coloured diodes in the led light fitting including blue and so on to get a spread of wave lengths which is just what each colour is labelled with and represents. White and blue are good together on to red to red/orange that makes rubbish algae happy! Leds are of virtually no UVR compared to any other lighting and with fan cooling lasts much longer making them over the long term very cheap compared to T5s, T8s, halides and all the rest. Okay lighting times, weak lighting, longer times to allow adequate photosynthesis, strong lighting, less time, best times with good lighting is copy the suns summer times where the life in your aquarium comes from, I run all my leds with just reds and greens and cyan down low the same for 14 hours per day just on and off, no fade in and out or solar cycle. Algae becomes an issue due to nutrients like the two phosphate components, abundant nitrogen, unused nitrate, proteins and so on, if they are under control you could have lighting on for 18 hours, prob with that is your corals will grow out of the tank in no time, lol. High quality algae with corals do not use any of those in abundance, just externally set up nutrient importing algae and rubbish algae in your aquarium, what happens is the alage with in your corals will mutate to become algae that will not feed your corals and subsequently the coral will go brown or cream in colour, that's the algae with in changing and the coral will, if this is not corrected, bleach and die. Corals will bleach from heat and so on, but it is the response by the algae with in that dictates this! If you get something in your stomach that is making you sick, you throw it up right, well in a way so does the coral with once good, that is now bad algae. Got any pics of your tanks equip to put up? Edited October 9, 2015 by liquidg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianwallace Posted October 11, 2015 Author Report Share Posted October 11, 2015 Got myself a chiller today so hopefully will go a long way towards stabilising the temp in my tank...I've set the temp to 25 is this about where it should be? The tank I have is an ocean free marine nano so has a built in sump, with a few different filter compartments (trickle filtration?) and a protine skimmer. I've put a heater in and set it to 23 - dies this make sense give. The chiller is at 25? As I mentioned earlier, I've also got a small fluval filter in to help with additional filtration and water movement. I'll add some photos of what it all looks like... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianwallace Posted October 11, 2015 Author Report Share Posted October 11, 2015 Photos Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianwallace Posted October 11, 2015 Author Report Share Posted October 11, 2015 Noticed some brown stuff on the sand....any ideas? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
liquidg Posted October 11, 2015 Report Share Posted October 11, 2015 (edited) Algae, diatom algae! One of the most abundant algae's in saltwater. What you are seeing is the sort of silicon husk, reduce silica and nutrients and you reduce it, there is a lot more to come as your san d is most likely chockers with silica! All GFO products reduce both. The most common source of silica is plankton shells from now back to thousands of years back, we us to mine it, we still do and make some silicon and glass out of It, silicon valley is built on an extinct ocean, stacks of old shells there to mine. Edited October 11, 2015 by liquidg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
african-cichlids Posted October 12, 2015 Report Share Posted October 12, 2015 Vary good chiller for the price of them mate good pick iv had no dramas with my halia touch wood! Every new tank goes through a bit of an algae bloom to a degree but like liquidg mention remove the culprit by adding GFO or similar. You can get away with minimal algae outbreaks by starting off with base/dead rock and you avoid a lot of headaches as I found out haha. Looking good tho mate your on the right path Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
liquidg Posted October 12, 2015 Report Share Posted October 12, 2015 Vary good chiller for the price of them mate good pick iv had no dramas with my halia touch wood! Every new tank goes through a bit of an algae bloom to a degree but like liquidg mention remove the culprit by adding GFO or similar. You can get away with minimal algae outbreaks by starting off with base/dead rock and you avoid a lot of headaches as I found out haha. Looking good tho mate your on the right path Lol, where have I herd that about live rock being not worth zip, lol, I wonder, right on mate, I switched my new halia on today. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
african-cichlids Posted October 12, 2015 Report Share Posted October 12, 2015 Lol, where have I herd that about live rock being not worth zip, lol, I wonder, right on mate, I switched my new halia on today. I took that advice from the world according to liquidg hahaha Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
african-cichlids Posted October 12, 2015 Report Share Posted October 12, 2015 Best move I made tho Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
liquidg Posted October 12, 2015 Report Share Posted October 12, 2015 (edited) I took that advice from the world according to liquidg hahaha lol, lol, smart aleck, lol From the many stupid reasons folks will try to convince you, "the one that makes me laugh" is the need to introduce bacteria to get a good bio response for the cycle to get going from live rock, what an absolute joke, oh and a money spinning lie!!! Then hitchhikers, most are harmful to a good reef tank, not all, but many are and the unlucky get the bad ones and hair algae is a real winner! Then that useless species of coralline out of thousands in the ocean that will cover your live rock making you feel, wow look at that and it seals up much of the rocks potential to denitrify and get that phos/cal bond Brocken in a much greater way and help your tank life experience some hard core sulphur as well! I will always look back on "else where" saying that all that I have typed is a joke, with a smile. I intentionally sterilised mine, then introduced this coralline species along with the blue, the green and the yellow varieties, much less invasive! This is that species. Sorry to put in pics in your thread mate but this is a piece of base rock, bleached and boiled. Now four months later its home made high grade live rock, once frags are glued on and good algae and sponges are added to it and are spreading out. Edited October 12, 2015 by liquidg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
african-cichlids Posted October 12, 2015 Report Share Posted October 12, 2015 I wish I had of listened earlier on mate and I would've missed out on the crap that I went through but lesson learnt. But each to there own I guess lol I won't ever be using "live rock" again Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
liquidg Posted October 12, 2015 Report Share Posted October 12, 2015 I wish I had of listened earlier on mate and I would've missed out on the crap that I went through but lesson learnt. But each to there own I guess lol I won't ever be using "live rock" again Mate we usually have to learn the hard way, me especially, lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
